BYU Football: Could Cougars End Up Missing a Bowl Game?

Sitting back in August, analyzing the schedule, it appeared becoming bowl-eligible for the Cougars was a no-brainer.

After all, with five traditional “cupcakes” on the schedule, the Cougars only needed to win one other game to get to the requisite six wins and a berth in the Armed Forces Bowl in University Park, Texas on December 30.

Fast-forward to the end of week-one in college football, and BYU had already picked up that win.

So are the Cougars still a shoe-in for the bowl after what transpired in weeks 2 and 3?

Consider this:

The Cougars have Central Florida this week, a toss-up game for two schools coming off tough losses.

Following that, the Cougars have a rematch against a Utah State team which has already been a surprise and may smell blood in the water should the Cougs lose at home to UCF.

A loss in those two games would leave the Cougars 1-4, just like 2010.

Even in that scenario, BYU should have no problem with San Jose State at home, but would have to then travel to Corvallis, Oregon to play a likely desperate Oregon State team which lost to Sacramento State the first week of the season. But we’ve seen nothing from the Cougars to indicate that’s an easy W.

Should they lose to the Beavers, they’d be 2-5, with a sure win against Idaho State getting them to 3-5 before travelling to Dallas to play TCU in Texas Stadium. If all we have to go on is both team’s performances to date, we would assume that’s a tough one for the Cougars to win.

So call it 3-6 with Idaho and New Mexico State getting the Cougars to 5-6 with a trip to Hawaii standing in the way of bowl eligibility. You’d be hard pressed to find many takers on bets favoring the Cougars to travel to Honolulu and come out with an easy win.

So sure, it’s still very early, and the scenario above is assuming the worst.

But we saw the worst play out in Provo Saturday. So don’t book those tickets to Dallas in December quite yet.